Archive for the ‘Hobby/Collecting News’ Category

A few days ago, I acquired my first 1910 T210 Old Mill card. While I do not have the card in hand yet, I am very excited because the card is of Red Legs catcher Ivey Wingo. Surprisingly, this piece of information has eluded card collectors for some time. None of the major card catalog sites mentioned this until now. I took it upon my self to make the change to the CardPricer.com checklist.

In 1909, Wingo signed to play with the Greenville franchise of the Class-D Carolina Association. Late in 1910, Roger Bresnahan, a future Hall of Fame member, and the St. Louis Cardinals, purchased Wingo’s contract from Greenville. The rest, as they say, is history.

Containing 640 cards, the T210 Old Mill set is easily the largest 20th-Century tobacco baseball card set. Each card measures approximately 1-1/2″ by 2-5/8″ and was included in a pack of American Tobacco Company Old Mill Cigarettes. The set was issued in eight separate series. Each series represented players from a specific Minor League. I’ll list the details following this post.

In any event, the cards are easy to identify on site. On each card, the player’s image is surrounded by a distinct red border. Similar to the 1909-11 T206 White Border set, the player’s last name and team affiliation are displayed at the front. On the back of the card, there is an advertisement for Old Mill Cigarettes and a series number. Below is a break down of the various leagues and teams by series.

Many people have asked me “What does Pre-War refer to?”. In the world of card collecting, pre-war or pre-war vintage can be considered a period or a type of collecting. The years for pre-war are from the 1850’s up through the end of World War II. You can almost divide card collecting into three sub-groups. In addition to Pre-War Vintage Cards, there is Post-War Vintage (sometimes referred to as just Vintage), and Modern. Post-War vintage is generally considered to consist of the cards produced in 1948 through the 1980 season. Everything after that is called “Modern”. Hope that helps!

Recently, I acquired an extremely rare N526 Kid Madden card; to boot, it just so happens to be a PSA 5 (EX) example. Although the circumstances of the acquisition leave a lot to be desired, at least I have one heck of a rare card. There are worse things than having the one and only example of a type card that has been authenticated by Professional Sports Authenticators. Fortunately for me, I’m from Atlanta and a big Braves fan. If I ever try and do a Braves type-card set, I’ll have a great start!

Since I am pretty much stuck with the card, unless I decide to take a bath with it, I decided to do some research on the set.

The un-numbered set contains fifteen members of the ‘89 Boston Beaneaters, the franchise that eventually became the Atlanta Braves. The team, stacked with Baseball Hall of Fame members, finished one game back of the New York Giants with an 83-45 record. The Beanneaters roster included such stars as Hoss Radbourn, John Clarkson, Dan Brouthers, & $10,000 King Kelly. The Giants also had their fair share of superstars; Buck Ewing was the teams backstop and the pitching staff was led by Tim Keefe, who won 347 career games.

Each card features a black and white line-drawn portrait of a Beaneater and measures 3-1/8″ by 4-1/2″. Two lines of text appear underneath each players picture, except in the case of M.J. Kelly & James A. Hart - they have three lines. The first line contains the players name; and, the last line displays the text “Boston Base Ball Club” (sans the quotation marks) with each players’ name is printed in capital letters. Kelly has the word ‘Captain’ injected between his name and the teams name. Hart’s card has the word ‘Manager’ instead. Three different backs have been discovered. The Number 7 Cigar brand and Diamond S brand are the most commonly found. However, a few examples are known with a blank back.

Later this year, my partial set of 1923 Lections baseball cards will be going up for sale at auction. I started collecting the set in late 2005; but, I have decided to let someone else finish what I started. So why not try and educate the public on this really neat, very difficult set?

One of the themes that I find myself drawn to is the childlike nature of baseball card collecting (that’s why I love strip cards so much). I have no doubt: Lections were for the kids.

Issued in 1923, this set remained in relative obscurity until 1997 when approximately thirty examples appeared in upstate New York. Today, the total population for this ten-card set numbers between sixty and eighty examples.

A distant cousin to the “Election Cards” used to promote local politicians, Lection cards were distributed in upstate New York for the purpose of promoting the sport of baseball. They were distributed to children and produced in green and orange/red. The green variation is more prevalent than the orange/red variation; however, the number of each type is so close it would be a stretch to classify the Orange/Red variations as truly scarcer. One can logically deduct that thick paper stock was used in production so that children could use the cards in games of chance. Consequently, most have redemption holes and/or heavy creases.

Each card depicts a head-shot of the given player set inside an oval frame. The player is found to the left end of the card with his name and team displayed below the image. To the right is a a line drawing depicting a baseball game. Spread over the field is the word Lections. The trademark information including the name for the unidentified company that produced these cards, appears below the slogan and in place of the grandstands. I will maintain the gallery of cards my site for you to view. To go straight to it, click here.

I am attempting to collect at least one baseball card for each player who played on the Cincinnati Reds and on the Chicago White Sox in 1919. I might have to settle for all but one.

A recent acquisition of collector grade Zee Nut baseball cards (commonly referred to as Zeenuts), helped me add a number of fringe players for the Black Sox. One of those cards is a 1920 Zee Nut of a player named Sullivan who played for the Vernon, California team. Although I had hoped this was indeed John Jeremiah Sullivan (a.k.a. Lefty Sullivan), it is not. While this is apparent when you look at some of the team photos from that year, it is also apparent because Lefty was just that, a left-handed pitcher. The player pictured is a right-hander and probably a catcher (judging by his glove). While I continue to research the man and search for his cards, I have left the “Unkown” Sullivan up. You can see it here.

David Rudd Cycleback, an expert in print photography, has been kind enough to make his electronic book, “Judging the Authenticity of Early Baseball Cards”, available for free. People can download it free of charge at http://www.cardpricer.com. CardPricer.com is a site I operate that is designed to help people accurately price Baseball cards. Cheers.

While this may not be news to some (in fact, this may not be news to anyone), we confirmed today that Frank Shellenback, noted for being a member of the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame, does in fact appear on the 1920 Collins-McCarthy Zee-Nut Issue.